DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2018.v06i03.025

Pages: 659-663

This paper is a review of the first treaty proposal of Frederick North in 1800 and Ceylon's first battle against the British rule in 1803. The British conquered coastal areas of Ceylon in 1796. Then they wanted to be dominant in the economic and administrative sector in whole Ceylon. The first British governor of Ceylon, Frederick North, decided that the British must develop state relationships with the king of Ceylon: Sri Wickrama Raja Singha to convert the Ceylon into a crown colony. North appointed General Hay Macdowall as an ambassador to the Kandyan kingdom of Ceylon and ordered him to develop diplomatic relations with the Kandyan king through a treaty. This article, using the historical method, aims to review the content of the treaty, which, North tried to initiate with the Ceylon monarchy and to cogitate the first British invasion of Kandy in 1803, which, was the consequence of North's failed process of establishing a treaty with the Ceylon monarch.